My previous poll, btw, was provoked by somebody reccing

[conuly]

a "rationalist Animorphs fanfic" by somebody with the username what_would_ender_do.

Which I'm not going to read, because that does not sound like something I want to get invested in. What I said is that this sure is an interesting pen name, and what I thought is that it's not even a little surprising that somebody with that particular Ender's Game reference in their username calls themself a rationalist.

The person making this rec also defined rationalist fic as fiction that doesn't make you ask why the protagonist went up to the roof to escape a serial killer rather than by fleeing out the front door and - I mean, does this need explaining? People are kinda dumb in lots of obvious and less obvious ways. Yes, even you and me. No matter how smart you are, you can't get over the fatal flaw of being human. And being stressed or scared or afraid for your life doesn't make your decision-making any better.

Anyway, the answer to the question "What would Ender do?" is "kill another kid, then simultaneously convince himself that it was absolutely necessary and there was no alternative and also that he didn't really kill anybody after all". Poor him. He's so put-upon, being both space-Jesus and also space-Hitler, and the very smartest person in the room. I'm sure he has his reasons, but that doesn't mean I have to endorse them.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Rationalism, rationalization, same diff...

But yeah, always weird when like, grown adults are like, treating Ender's Game as serious philosophy and not like... literally the worldview of a child?

[conuly]

A child who has been callously and deliberately traumatized over the course of his entire childhood, no less.

[elisi]

"What would Ender do?" is "kill another kid, then simultaneously convince himself that it was absolutely necessary and there was no alternative and also that he didn't really kill anybody after all"
He was... 6 years old? (It's been ages since I read Ender's Game.) And the adults were teaching him that he was on his own, which (not surprisingly) led to a rather warped worldview.

(If other stuff happens in later books, don't tell me. I might yet read them...)

[conuly]

He killed two kids in the first book - the one he killed at six, and another one he killed at 12 or so. And, of course, then there's the battle at the end, where he did genocide. And OSC takes pains to make it clear to the reader that he really did know it wasn't a simulation, even as he pretended to himself that he thought it was. Just like he really did know those other two times, even as he pretended that those kids were all right.

[elisi]

I do not blame a 6 year old for hoping that the bully the adults wouldn't protect him from was okay...

It's a story about children being turned into weapons, and it should be disturbing. I really ought to re-read it, because I think there are probably a lot of parallels to be made with Dune.

[conuly]

It's a story about children being turned into weapons, and it should be disturbing.

Sure. But I somehow don't think anybody with a username like cited above was as disturbed as they ought to be.

[elisi]

But I somehow don't think anybody with a username like cited above was as disturbed as they ought to be.
Good point. I had forgotten the starting point of this whole conversation!

[silveradept]

That user name by itself seems to be a large red flag about what's being written, that it is also a "rationalist" fic pretty well spikes the rest of any interest I had in it.

"What would Ender do?" He'd commit as much violence, death, and atrocity as he needed to do he could solve whatever puzzle you put in front of him, regardless of whether the problem was actually a problem or a thinly-veiled excuse to wage a xenocidal war with him as the commander and scapegoat.

[conuly]

Oh yeah. And if it wasn't framed as a rationalist fic - which, idk, there's always dodgy and frankly irrational politics involved when people invoke that term - then it might have just been a legacy username that the person just hasn't ditched yet. It happens.

But two of them together? There's no freaking way.

"What would Ender do?" He'd commit as much violence, death, and atrocity as he needed to do he could solve whatever puzzle you put in front of him, regardless of whether the problem was actually a problem or a thinly-veiled excuse to wage a xenocidal war with him as the commander and scapegoat.

Have you read the analysis that Ender is literally supposed to be Hitler? I'm not sure how much I believe it, but the person who prepared it certainly noted some compelling similarities between the two of them.

[silveradept]

If I have seen it before, it's been long enough that I've forgotten I've seen it, but yes, I can see where someone might want to make the comparison between the two. Although, if you believe the narrative, everyone has basically been grooming Ender to be Hitler and accomplish their war goals, so that would be a difference between the two of them.

[conuly]

https://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html

[silveradept]

I hadn't seen that before, and it is a useful comparison between the two of them. Card may or may not have intended for this comparison, but it's certainly there.